


I Melt With You

by CaffeinatedWriter



Category: Bully (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Sky High, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 06:26:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10714020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffeinatedWriter/pseuds/CaffeinatedWriter
Summary: Pete’s powers are different than the other supers and he wishes the other boy understood it wasn’t the tragedy he made it out to be.





	I Melt With You

**Author's Note:**

> The AU that exists because I had such a mighty thirst for Warren Peace as a child.

The need for basic academics goes out the window with high school. Or at least, anything that doesn’t revolve around tights and capes and the misuse of science.

He’s read eulogies and speeches, tales of past heroics and biographies written by one bias source after the other, but he can’t remember the last time he read something that really related with him. Not in school.

Creativity is chaos, or something like that.

From what he’s been able to determine, supers are afraid of a lot of really mundane things for people who run around in ill-suited outfits and fight to the death on the regular. But that’s not really any of his business.

There was a poem in middle school. Something cliche and obvious; everyone angsts at fourteen. Everyone connects to the shallow depth of melancholic poetry. It wasn’t just him, but he remembers it.

Something about feeling like a hurricane.

Natural and destructive and overwhelming. Running yourself down and taking everything in your path with you. That’s something _he_ can relate to, but they don’t encourage the vocalization of that kind of ideology.

Perfection is unachievable but you better be damn good at faking it as a super. Or maybe he’s bitter and jaded. Everyone else seems to have their shit together. Even the first years aren’t eyed with the nervous reluctance shot his way any time the cuff comes off.

He huffs a sigh, holding his hand up to inspect the ugly bangle for the hundredth time since entering school.

It doesn’t even try to disguise itself as anything other than the sleek restraint that it is. The way it gleams in the light that spills in from windows in every direction reminds him of visits with his dad. Of course, his dad has a matching set, without the freedom of a clasp.

Won’t be long before they match completely, if you were inclined to listen to gossip.

“You’re bumming out the empaths, Gary. It’s borderline painful.”

His eyes slide from his wrist to eyes that are so poor at hiding concern but sincere in their lack of pity. There’s an instant flood of calm and he almost growls at the sensation but, as offensive as he finds false positivity, there’s something raw and real about the way Pete’s barest presence brings him peace.

“I don’t care about the other empaths,” he grouses, letting the last of his annoyance fade away in the waves of Pete’s power. It’s very freeing.

The other boy flushes at the comment, and Gary’s not any better at other people’s feelings than he is his own, but he seems pleased. Gary can’t fathom why, but there’s a sense of pride and genuine pleasure that comes from making Pete happy.

He’s not very good at it, but it’s becoming something of a goal of his.

“Maybe not, but I have enough of a headache over this costume final without you choking me out with your gloom and doom,” Pete answers, sliding into the bench across from him.

Gary’s always liked that about Pete. The blunt way he talks to Gary without fear of offending. The way he doesn’t tiptoe but is instead honest with his kindness. In full honesty, Gary has always just liked Pete.

“Are you still worrying about that?” he muses fingers inching towards the sketchbook he knows Pete keeps for the dreaded class. Leave it to Pete to stress over the easiest A at Bullworth. It’s not like decisions made in Costuming 101 were set in stone.

Were that the case, his mother would be stuck prancing around in a cape and little else.

“Yes, I’m still worrying about _that_ ,” Pete says, smacking Gary’s hand away from his sketchbook. “Do I need to remind you that I have **no** plans. Not even a rough sketch and the mockups are due next week. We spent two weeks in cape vs. no cape and I still don’t know whether one would be beneficial to my aesthetic.”

Pete’s rambling now, and it’s always a fascinating sight to witness. He’s a nervous, neurotic ball of empath that reminds Gary time and time again just how hilarious the universe thought itself.

They’re being played, cosmically. He knows it.

“First of all,” Gary starts, hands undeterred by the sting of Pete’s strikes. He’d definitely dealt with worse in his life. “Nobody benefits from a cape. They’re tacky and a hazard. You should know this; we’ve watched The Incredibles together no less than fourteen times.”

Pete offers nothing but a snort of amusement, but warmth settles in the pit of Gary’s stomach anyways.

Flipping open the well loved sketchbook, he’s stopped short by what he sees. He wants to make a joke. Tease Pete. Anything to destroy this moment that has suddenly become too intimate, if only to him.

He’d joked before that Pete should just give in to the forest witch aesthetic that had plagued him ever since they spent that summer exploring the woods behind the other boy’s house. Tucking wildflowers behind his ears, it’d been even more abundantly clear in that moment that Pete’s purpose in life would never be to intimidate.

If only he could get Pete to see the invaluable strength that lied in his powers.

The other boy hadn’t taken well to Gary’s suggestions of flowers and cloaks, or at least, Gary had taken it that way from the way he’d huffed and whined and generally made a scene of offense.

Maybe he hadn’t been as objected as he appeared, the drawings before him a testament of consideration. Gary had mostly been kidding about cloaks but the evidence presented shows that one would definitely suit Pete. He’s amused to see it falls short over a skirt, light and wispy and tattered like an illusion, pants or tights or something underneath keeping it decent.

It’s beautiful. Pete is beautiful and the embodiment of a cool fierceness he doesn’t think the boy has fully realized he possesses.

He wasn’t built to hurt, and Gary wishes he’d understand the blessing in that just as much as he wishes Pete understood that he still had the capability to destroy. That he could leave scars, deeper and more impactful than any other super.

Sometimes Gary is terrified of Pete, but mostly he’s just very overwhelmed.

“You said you didn’t have a rough sketch but this is colored,” he accuses, holding up the drawing to expose the earth tones. Pete shoves it down, covering the picture with his hands. Embarrassed.

“That’s- those aren’t my final! I was just…you always described what you thought I should wear so vividly. I just wanted to see. It’s nothing,” Pete mumbles, stumbling over his words.

Pete’s not great at words either. Not when he thinks he should be, when he thinks it matters. Gary always thinks what the other boy has to say matters, even if he doesn’t believe that the words are truthful.

He shakes his head, frustrated at the dismissive explanation.

“Why can’t you look like this? What’s wrong with it?” he demands, lightly pulling Pete’s hands away from the drawing. “This is you. You’re a force, Pete. Unassuming and…and, I don’t know! Enchanting. Like a fairy tale. That’s horrible and gay, but you get it.”

By now, Pete’s face is glowing with embarrassment. Gary would feel worse if he didn’t feel so right in his argument. He’s never been so sure of anything.

The drawings express so much potential for Pete understanding that he isn’t like other supers. Doesn’t fall into the mainstream idea, but he is so important. The Pete in the sketchbook looks powerful in his softness, and Pete had to have thought so too just a little bit to have drawn it the way he did.

“I can’t fight looking like a forest nymph, Gary,” Pete hisses, slamming the sketchbook closed with a sharp thud and yanking it from Gary’s grasp. He lets it go without a fight.

“You’re not going to fight like that, Pete. That’s how you get killed, acting like you’re some Mr. Fantastic. You’re different. Your power is different.”

“I don’t want to be different!”

The both freeze, breath cutting through a horrible silence. Gary realizes he’s pissed, but he’s not sure if it’s him or Pete or some combination of both. There’s relief too, that Pete isn’t so great at controlling his power either when he’s upset.

“Well you are,” he breaks the silence, voice firm. “I know it must be really terrible for you, knowing you’ll never have blood on your hands, no matter how much they might have deserved it.” The sarcasm drips off the words so heavily, he’s pretty sure he sees Pete flinch.

“You don’t care about things like that,” Pete accuses so quietly, Gary almost doesn’t hear it.

“I don’t care about helping people,” Gary confirms, flashing a toothy grin that doesn’t even make it close to reaching his eyes. “Why should I? No one wants to help me.”

The statement hangs over them. He half expects Pete to call him selfish or to finally call him out as the obvious monster he is. Normally, he tries to deter the boy from that line of thought, but there really has to be a breaking point somewhere close.

Maybe it won’t be as bad if Gary leads him to it rather than waiting for Pete to stumble over it himself.

“No, that’s true. But…don’t you feel the need to protect someone? Something?”

“Myself,” Gary answers without missing a beat. He leaves the rest unspoken. It’s probably laughable to think him capable of keeping anyone else safe when he can’t even manage properly with himself.

Pete stares him straight in the eyes and for once, Gary sees a relatable overwhelming sort of fear in them. He hates it.

“Stop looking like someone died,” he snaps, sharp and angry.

The fear fades to nothing, and Gary hates it more. That bullshit composure Pete forces for the sake of acting like he’s some ever constant source of calm. Less than calm, even. Neutral and numb and-

“I don’t know what I’m going to do after school. I don’t- it might involve jail. It might because I’m so angry at all of this,” he says, arms spreading wide to motion at the open space of the cafeteria when he means so much more than this room or this school or this town. “And I want to do it better. I know I could do it better.”

His dad thought he could do it better too.

To his credit, Pete stays silent though the fear returns as quickly as it left. He forces himself to continue.

“But I do know that I am _never_ , **_never_** going to throw on a pair of tights and risk my life for the same people who called me a demon when I got my powers. I’m not.”

There’s a wetness in Pete’s eyes that he’s trying to blink away with a subtly he should know Gary is picking up on. Gary notices everything about Pete. “We could go somewhere else,” he chokes out through a hitching breath. It brings attention again to that burning in Gary’s stomach that doesn’t even remotely feel bad.

_We._ Like Pete had every intention of staying a constant in Gary’s life.

“They’re all the same everywhere,” Gary says, unable to keep the fond amusement out of his voice. Pete practically deflates in front of him. “But we…we could go somewhere else. We should. Go somewhere else. You and me.”

Pete sniffs, biting his lip as he visibly pulls himself together.

“Jackass,” he mumbles, scrubbing viciously at his eyes with a fist. “If you think I’m going to flirt with you twice a week through a glass pane like your parents do, you’re dreaming.” Gary freezes, mouth hanging open in shock like the jackass he was just accused of being.

“Pete-”

“Even if I don’t do anything else good for this world, I’m going to keep your reckless butt out of jail, Gary Smith,” Pete interrupts, and the boy has always been a little bit of a hardass when it came to telling Gary he’s wrong, but there’s something admirable about the sure way he says it now.

“Dressed like a forest nymph,” Gary adds pointedly, biting his lip in a poor attempt to hide a smile he knows is only going to exasperate the other boy.

Pete sighs, rolling his eyes. He rests his cheek on his palm, the perfect picture of frayed patience.

“It’s in consideration,” he concedes, and Gary doesn’t get to revel in victory often but he knows when he’s won.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, you can find me [here](http://beathimbacktotheghetto.tumblr.com).


End file.
